Borders administrators wield the axe on 36 staff November 30, 2009 BORDERS, the bookshop that has fallen into administration, yesterday made its first round of redundancies. Joint administrators Phil Duffy, Geoff Bouchier and David Whitehouse of MCR announced that a total of 36 employees based at the London head office of Borders have been made redundant. Duffy said that the redundancies did not impact the business [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 30, 2009 Panmure Gordon Panmure Gordon yesterday announced it has hired Ed Warner to its Board as a non-executive director from 1 December 2009. Warner, 46, is currently chairman of UK Athletics Limited, the sport’s national governing body, and Tradefair Holdings. He is also a non-executive director of Clarkson, Moneycorp Markets, The Eastern European Trust, Standard Life [...]
CENTRAL BANK ACTS TO HALT DUBAI ROUT November 29, 2009 The United Arab Emirates’ central bank has issued emergency credit facilities to banks in the region amid mounting fears that Dubai’s debt crisis could contaminate the rest of the Middle East. The bank – based in Abu Dhabi – issued a statement yesterday saying it “stands behind local and foreign banks operating in the country” [...]
UK and US slam Iran’s atomic plan November 29, 2009 IRAN defied heads of state and governing bodies worldwide last night, as it announced plans to build 10 new nuclear plants. The Iranian nuclear agency will start work on five uranium enrichment sites over the next two months, Tehran said, with five more to be set up at a later date, with the aim of [...]
UBS may quit Switzerland November 29, 2009 UBS last night moved to play down reports that it would consider moving its headquarters out of Switzerland in response to the prospect of tighter regulation. Oswald Grübel, chief executive of the global banking giant, is said to have made the threat to a meeting of industry figures at the Zurich Business Club on Thursday. [...]
Forget Dubai’s woes: Iran is the real risk November 29, 2009 BANKS have written down $3 trillion or so over the past couple of years. We should therefore keep the crisis that is engulfing Dubai in some sort of perspective. The total debts of the Dubai government are around $80bn and nobody is suggesting that more than a small proportion will need to be written off. [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 29, 2009 THE SUNDAYSThe Sunday TelegraphRATE HIKE THREATENS EXISTENCE OF RURAL PETROL STATIONSHundreds of rural petrol stations face closure if an “outrageous” increase in business rates is pushed through next April, forecourt owners have warned. Owners of the UK’s 6,000 independent petrol stations will this week launch a major MP-backed campaign to urge a government body to [...]
Spending down for Xmas November 29, 2009 SPENDING was down over the Black Friday weekend in the US, data out yesterday showed, although more people turned out to peruse the shops than last year. In the post-Thanksgiving period, which traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping rush, average spending was down 7.9 per cent a person as shoppers reined in their spending and [...]
Candy brothers hit out at Qatar November 29, 2009 The Candy brothers – the pair who build luxury apartments for the super-rich – have filed a writ accusing the ruling family in Qatar of breaking a £119m contract. Nick and Christian Candy claim the family owes them £81m because of a joint contract to develop the Chelsea Barracks site. They claim the Qataris scrapped [...]
Venezuelan banks threatened November 29, 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday he would nationalise private banks unless they complied with the law. In a broadcast he said: “I have no problem with that because the banks don’t want to extend credit to the poor.” He added: “To all the country’s private bankers… I’m saying he who slips up loses; I’ll [...]